Introduction

Abstract

With television, electoral politics has been transformed from competition between groups over interests to competitions between elites for audience share. How has electronic reproduction impacted the “aura” of politics in an “amusement society”? Douglas Kellner illustrates how media-produced images and spectacles of the presidency are similar to movies and soap operas. Chris Rojek argues that Nixon was the last president with a real aura, “post-auratic” presidents are shaped by media considerations. Lauren Langman shows how Zippergate was little more than an expensive soap opera whose audiences saw Bill and Monica as a hero and heroine assaulted by puritanical villains. For Terry Clark, given shifts in the “political culture” in which the majority is socially liberal and economically conservative, political leaders must have images that can embrace both positions, Bill Clinton as the model. Gary Fine and Emily Eisenberg ask why Nixon and Clinton evoke such powerful feelings and suggest the political images and values of earlier times shape later perceptions. Finally, Michael Weinstein and Deena Weinstein show how following 9/11, the country needed a strong resolute leader, and so the media transformed George Bush—overnight he went from a rather mediocre, “accidental” president to the strong leader fighting for democracy.